


Brain Genius

by braingenius



Category: Looney Tunes | Merrie Melodies
Genre: M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 02:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braingenius/pseuds/braingenius
Summary: A recent college graduate responds to a want ad. What happens next will surgically remove your kneecaps.





	1. The Interview

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dogwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dogwriter).



The silver car eased to a stop in the middle of the desert. The coyote looked up from their phone to take a quick glance around them.

 

Nothing.

 

Nothing.

 

More nothing.

 

Weird rock.

 

A  _ whole lotta _ nothing.

 

And another one of those big weird rocks.

 

“What’s going on?” Patrick asked, slightly alarmed. “Did we run out of gas?”

 

“Nope. This is your stop.” The driving rat responded somewhat curtly.

 

“Wh...come on, seriously, quit joking. I need to get to a job interview!” The hairs on the back of the coyote’s neck bristled against the starchy collar of their dark blue suit.

 

“Look, pal, this is the address you gave me. 1949 Blackrock Court, Weramy Valley, Arizona.” The rat gave an equally testy response, as if  _ he _ didn’t want to be here either (which was quite probably the case).

 

“...there aren’t any buildings here!” Patrick snapped, gesturing with a paw vaguely out towards...everything. Or nothing, depending on your perspective. They were sort of pointing in the general direction of one of those weird rocks, not like there were many other landmarks to indicate general direction.

 

“No kiddin’,” the rat quipped.

 

“I’m gonna call them.” The coyote pulled out their phone and scrolled through their contracts. “Tell them they gave me the wrong address.” They tapped on the contact for “WEC Inc”, then put the phone to their ear as they waited through the thoroughly mundane electric vibrations of the dial tone.

 

“WEC Incorporated~” A refined, almost musical baritone answered—the same voice Patrick had talked with during the phone interview. They’d know it anywhere.

 

“Y-yeah, hi, this is Patrick, I was supposed to have a job interview with you today?”

 

“Ah, Patrick Coyoté!” Patrick raised their eyebrows at the mispronunciation of their name. They themself generally only used two syllables for it, but they never corrected their potential employer about it. Besides, it sounded kind of nice. “Did you make your way all right?”

 

“A-actually, I was going to talk to you about that. The address you gave me, 1949 Blackrock Court, Weramy Valley?”

 

“Mm-hmm~?” The man on the other end of the phone line sounded...smug or flirtatious. Patrick couldn’t tell which, and any guesses they’d make about it would be clouded by low self-esteem one way and by wishful thinking the other.

 

“I think there’s been a mistake, because right now I’m in the middle of the desert.”

 

“Oh, there’s no mistake, Mr. Coyoté. Do you see that large geofact that’s shaped a  _ bit _ like an anvil?”

 

“Uhhh…” Patrick scanned the landscape again, eventually focusing on a large rock formation to their right, about fifty feet away. “I think so?”

 

“If you approach it from the north side, you will find a door. Push the button to activate the intercom, and you’ll be let inside.”

 

“...okay, thanks.” Patrick hung up and slowly put the phone back into their pocket, a look of complete bewilderment on their face.

 

“Old address?” The rat turned around in the driver’s seat to face the coyote.

 

“No, he says this is the place…” Patrick opened the door on their side and stepped out of the car, just as the rat’s own cell pinged.

 

“All right, but I gotta go pick up another passenger, so if you need a lift back it might be awhile before anyone shows up. Sorry,” the rat shrugged, before stepping on the gas and making a U-turn on a dirt road that may or may not have even existed, speeding back the way he came.

 

Patrick sighed, then began to make their way towards the large formation. Using their instinctive coyote’s knowledge of direction, they managed to find the front door by walking counter-clockwise around the rock...only to find that the door would have been on their  _ left _ as they walked towards it. Rolling their eyes, they pressed the button on the brass-plated intercom to the right of the door.

 

“Yeeeeees~?” That same voice.

 

“Um, hi, this is Patrick, for the interview?”

 

“Ahh, I’ll be with you in a moment!”

 

The sound of footsteps walking off came tinnily through the speaker, followed by the faint ding of an elevator. A moment later, the handle on the front door jiggled, then the door opened.

 

A thin, somewhat scraggly-looking coyote stood in the doorway. His ears perked up as he laid eyes on the newcomer, and a grin spread across his muzzle.

 

“Patrick Coyoté! What a pleasure!” The coyote inside grabbed Patrick’s paw in both his own and shook vigorously.  _ This _ was the owner of that mellifluous voice? “Come in, come in! You  _ are _ of the Mearns Coyotés, I presume?”

 

“Uhhhhh...not that I know of?” Patrick blushed a bit as the older coyote virtually  _ dragged _ them inside, reaching a paw back to close the door behind them.

 

“No? Hm, pity.” The coyote cocked his head, one of his ears flopping. “Still, I wouldn’t want to be accused of nepotism…” He pressed the button to the elevator that presumably was what took him to ground level, which rang and opened immediately. “After you~” The older coyote gestured to let the younger in before him.

 

The interior was...surprisingly elegant, if somewhat outdated. Mild, royalty-free synthesizer music played quietly as the stranger pushed a control button. Patrick took a moment to size up their presumed prospective employer in the clear, tasteful light of the elevator. The first thing Patrick noticed was that he was not wearing any clothes at all. This wasn’t an unheard-of fashion statement, especially for older toons, but it did make Patrick wonder if  _ they _ were overdressed. The elevator door opened again, and the other coyote wordlessly motioned to let Patrick step out first.

 

Patrick obliged, stepping into a cave which, despite its decent electric lighting and tasteful midcentury furniture, was still absolutely a cave. In the middle of the room was a decently sized table, with matching angular chairs at opposite ends.

 

“Take a seat!” Patrick did so as the other coyote eagerly sat down opposite them, suddenly donning a pair of reading glasses and shuffling a few papers. Patrick couldn’t help but grin. Despite his employer’s practiced professionalism, he obviously wasn’t afraid to play the odd toony trick or two. It was...honestly really charming.

 

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced properly. As you could likely tell, I, too am a Coyoté...Wile E. Coyoté, to be specific. By trade, I am a genius. My card~” Wile E. reached into a breast pocket he didn’t have and pulled out a clean, minimalistic business card, handing it to Patrick.

 

“A genius?” Patrick inquired, hoping they didn’t come across  _ too _ skeptical about it.

 

“Indeed! As you can see…” Wile E. reached up to tug a string that Patrick hadn’t noticed before, pulling down a veritable wall of diplomas. “I have degrees in chemistry, biology, cartoon physics, animal psychology, mechanical ungineering, underwater basket-weaving…”

 

Patrick scanned the older coyote’s accolades. Many of them were from correspondence courses. Patrick could tell that, if nothing else, this was a man with a  _ lot _ of time on his hands.

 

“ _ But _ , even a genius can’t do  _ everything _ .” Wile E. pulled the string again, sending the wall of his accomplishments flying back up to the ceiling and snapping loudly into place. “As you’ve read in my want ad, I am in need of an assistant. Someone who is smart enough to appreciate my genius...yet not smart enough to  _ truly _ threaten it.”

 

Patrick blinked at the somewhat backhanded compliment. “I mean, I  _ guess _ I’m both those things.”

 

“What was it again that you majored in, my boy~?” Wile E. leaned forward onto the table as he looked into the younger coyote’s eyes, the claws on his fingers clicking as they idly drummed on the table.

 

“...Creative writing.” Patrick cringed inwardly. A desire to write the Great American Novel is generally not something that’s desirable to most employers.

 

“...I see.” Wile E. raised an eyebrow...then quickly returned to his usual exuberance. “Well, genius comes in all stripes, doesn’t it? I’m certain that skill will be of use yet! What’s your prior job experience?”

 

“I...worked for a few years at a grocery store and then I did pharmaceutical data entry. It should all be there in the resume.” Patrick never understood why job interviews always asked questions they already knew the answers to.

 

“Y-yes, well...about that…” Wile. E. gave a sheepish grin, blushing a bit himself and rubbing the back of his head as he set his papers down.

 

“...Don’t you have it with you?” Patrick tried briefly to parse the upside down text of the papers on the table.

 

ʇsɐǝɹq ɹǝuunɹpɐoɹ ssǝluᴉʞs ssǝlǝuoq ˙ql Ɩ

ɹɐƃǝuᴉʌ ǝuᴉʍ ǝɔᴉɹ ˙ɔ ㄣ/Ɩ

ǝɔnɐs ʎos ˙ɔ Ɛ/Ɩ

 

“...that’s a recipe for roadrunner teriyaki.” As soon as Patrick said that out loud, Patrick realized they said it out loud. Well, this interview was a disaster. Patrick opened their mouth to issue some sort of humble, conciliatory response, but was interrupted by the sound of Wile E. dropping his face into his own paws.

 

“All right, I admit it. I couldn’t get your resume out of the computer.” The older coyote was almost choking up at this point, as if he’d committed a sin he’d never forgive himself for.

 

“...‘out of the computer’?” Patrick blinked.

 

“I even tried to make a machine that turns ‘e-mail’ into regular mail but I just...I can’t get it to work!” The coyote pounded the table with his fist as he buried his face into his forearm.

 

“...you mean a  _ printer?? _ ” An inadvertent grin spread across Patrick’s face. They felt bad about finding this amusing on some level, but...how did the guy not know what a  _ printer _ was?? On  _ top _ of that, he  _ reinvented  _ the damn thing but couldn’t get THAT to work either…

 

“A what?” Wile E. looked up at Patrick. There were actual tears welling up in his eyes. Patrick could only hope that their grin of amusement could come off as one of altruism.

 

“Actually...do you want me to take a look at that for you?”

 

* * *

 

Wile E. Coyote’s computer was a towering beige box with a fan that seemed to have been borrowed from a jet engine. A big, red “CompuStore” sticker was slapped on the front. Patrick vaguely remembered that place going out of business when they were in elementary school. A bulky CRT monitor next to it displayed a crude 3D “wandering maze” animation. Every so often, a badly bitcrushed “Meep Meep!” would play from the speakers as a low-resolution bitmap of a desert bird would pass in front of the camera as it made its own wandering way. The damn thing had a  _ floppy drive _ , for crying out loud! Attached to the back of the computer tower by means of what appeared to be a garden hose was what Patrick presumed to be his prospective employer’s invention, which looked more like a newspaper press than anything else.

 

“...Oh.” There was absolutely nothing else Patrick could say at this point.

 

“So you can fix it??” Wile E. asked, desperately.

 

“...Let me put it this way, I don’t think I can make it  _ worse _ .” Patrick gulped, then let their flattened ears perk up a bit. “I’ll see what I can do.” They walked toward the hot mess of computing, walking around the back to check the connections. Wile E. waited nervously, nibbling on the tips of his claws.

 

“...well, here’s the problem,” Patrick said from behind the makeshift printer. “You forgot to plug it in.”

 

Wile E’s ears drooped, and his pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. Patrick connected the contraption to the electrical outlet, and after a bit of jerking and sparking on the machine’s part, it rolled out a copy of Patrick’s resume and cover letter.

 

Patrick took the papers in one paw and gritted their teeth as they walked back over to Wile E. “So...I’m guessing that’s all you’re gonna need me for, then.”

 

“Y-yes,” Wile E. said flatly. “Consider this interview over.”

 

The younger coyote’s ears drooped, and they began the process of slinking out of the room, tail between their legs, when Wile E. firmly placed a paw on each of Patrick’s shoulders.

 

“Because you, my good friend, are  _ HIRED _ .”

 

Patrick froze, then a shaky but genuine smile grew on their face. “Just...because I plugged your printer in?”

 

“...Y-yes! In fact...that was a  _ test _ , my dear boy. And you passed with flying colors!” Wile E. firmly squeezed Patrick’s right paw between his own.

 

“Welcome to WEC Incorporated, Mr. Coyoté. Now, if you could just help me deal with that blasted purple gorilla...”


	2. Disaster

As it turns out, working for a reclusive eccentric is not that bad of a gig at all. For one thing, in order to maintain a life of reclusive eccentricity, these people generally have money to burn, and thus tend to compensate their employees quite handsomely. Wile E. Coyote was no exception to this rule, offering the younger coyote free room and board (really, the least he could do for a job located in the true geographical Middle of Nowhere) as well as a substantial monthly salary.

 

That said, another thing that must be known about working for reclusive eccentrics is that quite often, you will have  _ no idea _ of the kind of work you’ll be doing going in, especially if your employer is a self-proclaimed “Genius by Trade”, owning and operating a “corporation” of minuscule size and vague-at-best purpose. The first few weeks on the job, Patrick’s duties were more or less menial—taking the company car into town to run errands for their boss, “assisting in the maintenance and continued operation of WEC, Inc.” (read: helping out with chores), and providing the more-than-occasional bit of tech support to the befuddled older coyote.

 

Patrick couldn’t help but feel sometimes that they were being underutilized—if anything, it reminded them a bit of living with their parents—but they didn’t mind too much. The job paid well, and Wile E., despite his clear self-obsession, was one of the more generous and understanding employers they’d had. Besides, he was kinda…

 

 _No._ _NO_ _no no no no no._

 

Patrick gritted their teeth and attempted to shake the thought out of their head. If there’s one thing they’d learned from television, it’s that having feelings for one’s employer always, always,  _ always _ ends badly. They sighed and tried to refocus their attention on the latest episode of  _ My Pupper, My Pupper and Me _ as they drove down the endless, featureless highway back to WEC headquarters. Within 15 seconds their mind was wandering again.

 

_ I like his voice a lot, though. _

 

_ Does he sing? I don’t think I’ve actually heard him sing. _

 

_ Maybe he sings in the shower? _

 

_ Maybe I’ll accidentally run into him in the shower… _

 

 _NO_ _._ _NO_ _._ _BAD_   _DOG._ _STOP_ _._

 

_ God, that would be a disaster. _

 

_...no, what would be a disaster is if I  _ _ TOLD _ _ him how I felt about him. Yikes… _

 

_ I mean, what would he even see in someone like me anyway? He’s old enough to be my… _

 

_...god,  _ _ how _ _ old is he? _

 

_ “WEC Incorporated, established 1961…” _

 

_...holy crap, that would make him older than 60. God, probably at  _ _ least _ _ like, 70-something. _

 

_...he looks so  _ _ good _ _ for 70-something though!! _

 

_ NO NO  _ _ NO _ _.  _ _ STOP _ _. I’m 23 and he’s one of the like, four people on the planet who still uses AOL. He’s too old for you, brah. _

 

_...oh my god, he probably isn’t even  _ _ gay _ _. _

 

_ How do I keep forgetting that heterosexuals even exist? _

 

“...Travis,  _ please _ stop saying ‘Milk Bone’.” Patrick’s ears flicked up as their attention was drawn once again to the podcast. Great. They’d been so caught up in their Gay Angst that they’d missed a perfectly good dick joke.

 

“Alright, lemme hit you with this one…” The interrupting voice of the Eldest Pupper was itself interrupted by the sound of Patrick’s ringtone, which they’d never changed from default. They briefly glanced down at their phone...ok, it was Wile E. They tapped the button to pick up.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Patrick, my boy~!” Wile E.’s voice came through the car speakers as lively as ever, though somewhat crunchy from the cell compression. “Er...do you mind if I call you that?”

 

“...not at all!” Patrick hesitated in pleased surprise. For all his foibles, Wile E. was one of the most respectful people towards gender identity that Patrick had ever met, which they’d discovered after rather impulsively drawing in a question mark next to the “Male” box they’d ticked on the intake form. “What’s going on?”

 

“I am planning a...shall we say,  _ ambitious _ corporate project for the near future. If you are up for the challenge, I would be  _ delighted _ to have you join me.”

 

Again with the vagueness. Patrick cocked their head. “...okay, fill me in.”

 

“How much do you know about  _ roadrunners? _ ”

 

“Roadrunners…?” The younger coyote wracked their brain for a moment. “...Wasn’t that that one show from the 80s about biker birds?”

 

The coyote on the other end of the line let out a sigh. “Has it really been that long?” he muttered. “...Well, no matter, we’ve still got a week. After a bit of on-the-job training from  _ Professor _ Coyoté, you’ll be as good as an expert! Ta-ta, now~!” Wile E. hung up.

 

“...‘ta-ta’,” Patrick repeated, before smirking sadly. “ _ Waaaaayyyyy _ too old for you, brah.”

 

* * *

 

Once again, Patrick found themself driving directly into the sun. The coyote gave a quiet but malcontent growl as they once again readjusted the sun visor and once again pondered how hard it could have possibly been for their employer to find a location that  _ wasn’t _ 45 minutes west of any and all civilization. The only thing that made the route back traversable at  _ all _ , Patrick pondered, was the fact that there were literally  _ no other cars _ to—

 

“ᴹᵉᵉᵖ ᵐᵉᵉᵖᵎ”

 

Patrick’s ears perked and swiveled behind them. That...that  _ couldn’t _ have been a car horn, could it? They squinted as they adjusted the rear-view mirror, struggling to make out  _ anything _ as they were bombarded by the setting sun’s unrelenting red glare. In the brief time they allotted themself to take their eyes off the road ahead of them, they couldn’t see anything that looked like another car. They shook their head and shrugged it off, returning to the road and—

 

“Meep meep!”

 

Okay,  _ someone _ else was out there. But why the hell were they honking?? Patrick began to panic and took another look in the rear view mirror. Several car lengths behind them they could make out what appeared to be a silhouette of a singular figure.  _ Great, a motorcycle. _ Patrick  _ hated _ motorcycles. They didn’t just dislike the idea of riding one, they hated being on the road even in  _ proximity _ to one. There was  _ so much _ that could go wrong in that situation, it made their skin crawl. Dealing with a motorcycle on the interstate was bad enough—Patrick had no ideas  _ what _ the hell to do with a motorcycle coming up on their tail with their headlights off and honking at them on a  _ desert dirt road _ .

 

Thinking as quickly as they could, Patrick snarled and signaled that they were going to move into a nonexistent right lane to let the cycle pass. “Friggin...stupid asshole…” they cursed under their breath, their claws beginning to dig into the steering wheel.

 

_ *TAP TAP TAP* _

 

Patrick’s heart jumped into their throat as they heard someone knock on the driver’s side window. Christ, was this a  _ cop?! _ What in god’s name do you  _ do _ when someone comes up on you with a motorcycle and taps on your window?

 

As the coyote is wont to do in dangerous situations, Patrick made a split-second decision to do the worst thing possible and rolled down the window.

 

It was a bird.

 

It was a bird who was easily doing  _ eighty _ .

 

It was  _ running alongside the goddamn  _ _ car _ .

 

For one brief, powerful moment, the bird and the young coyote made eye contact, the wide, curious eyes of the avian sizing up the thoroughly underwhelming canine. A shock of deep blue plumage was perched above the bird’s eyes, a bright yellow beak curved into an unrelentingly silly grin rested below them.

 

“...what—”

 

“ **_MEEP MEEP!!_ ** ”

 

The coyote yelped and swerved as the bird easily  _ doubled _ its speed, leaving the coyote’s car, quite literally, in the dust. Patrick slammed on the brakes, frantically gripping the steering wheel in a feeble attempt to maintain control of the vehicle, which decided that it would instead crash into a saguaro.

 

“Ohhhh,  _ crap _ .” Patrick went pale once the dust cleared and they had a chance to assess the situation. They quickly unbuckled and left the car in case the damage looked better from the outside.

 

Nope, it looked  _ worse _ .

 

“Oh crap, this is  _ bad _ . This is  _ REALLY _ bad, I—”

 

Patrick’s already flattened ears went limp once they heard their phone ring. They quickly pulled it out of the car.

 

It was Wile E. Of  _ course _ it was Wile E. Patrick’s thumb hovered over the button for a few seconds, trembling. They took a deep breath in and picked up, trying not to make themself think about doing so.

 

“H-hello??”  _ Great. Off to a great start with the voice crack there. _

 

“Just to make sure, you  _ did _ pick up ACME brand birdseed, right?”

 

“...I think that’s the only kind they sell at ACME Hardware.”

 

“Ahh, you can never be too careful, Patrick. The roadrunner is a fussy sort...if the mix does not have exactly the right seed-to-nut ratio…”

 

Patrick took a deep breath in. He had to tell Wile E. what happened if he had any hope of not spending a night alone in the desert.

 

“...Patrick, are you okay?” Evidently Wile E. must have heard them.

 

“...alright, listen. You’re not going to believe this. I was driving back, and I...ran into this bird…”

 

“You hit a bird?”

 

“...no, actually it was more like...ugh, like this bird ran into  _ me _ . And it ran me off the road, and—”

 

The sound of something hitting the floor clattered over the phone line. “...you mean...it actually  _ ran _ you off the road?”

 

“...y-yeah, actually, and—”

 

“How big was this bird?” Wile E. interrogated.

 

“...pretty big, I’d say. It tapped on my window while I was driving, and it...honked at me??”

 

“Was it, perchance, a ‘meep-meep’-ing sort of honk?”

 

“...Yeah, that’s as good a way to put it as any, actually…”

 

Wile E. spun Patrick around by the shoulders and stared into their eyes with frightening intensity. “Which way did it go?”

 

“GAH!!” Patrick yelped. “H-how did you get here?!”  
  
“ _WHICH WAY. DID IT. GO.”_ Wile E. demanded.

 

“...t-that way, just down the rooOOAAAAAD!!” Patrick’s shaking voice quickly rose to a scream as the older coyote DARTED down the road, dragging Patrick along by the wrist. Patrick, never having been the most athletic of coyotes, struggled to keep up with Wile E., but managed thanks to the older coyote’s grip on them.

 

Suddenly, Wile E. darted into a patch of sagebrush, crouching down to hide within it, but not before grabbing the younger coyote by the collar and dragging them in with him.

 

“I—”   
  


“ _ Shh!! _ ” Wile E. demanded, his eyes narrowing as he stared through the brush. “ _ He will be coming back any minute now, _ ” he whispered.

 

“ _ I drove the car into a cactus when the bird ran me off the road, _ ” Patrick whispered in response. “ _ I’m sorry. _ ”

 

Wile E. looked back at the younger coyote and grinned. “ _ Oh, don’t apologize, Patrick, my boy! It just means an early start to ‘OPERATION: Double-Team the Desert Cock’~! _ ”

 

The two coyotes stared silently at each other.

 

“ _ For both our sakes, _ ” whispered Patrick, “ _ please _ _ pick a different name. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Patrick Coyote appears courtesy of dogwriter on FurAffinity. Patrick Coyote's wardrobe was curated by Patrick Coyote, with most elements of clothing sourced from Target, probably.


End file.
